Carter, of Morehouse Parish, LA. 15 years of age and
that they were both on their feet at the time the ceremony was performed and
appeared to look in fine health.Friday
the 19th of June, 1857.

Signed,

M.M. Fleming, Judge

Ashley is the second county from the Mississippi
River, on the southern border of the State; the Ouachita River to the mouth of
the Saline and thence up the Saline to the Drew County line, making the western
boundary.Drew County is on the north
and Chicot on the east.The county is
thirty nine miles at the longest place, east and west, and twenty seven miles
north and south, and has an area of 950 square miles or 608,000 acres.The whole of this, barring about 35,000
acres of bottom land on Saline and Ouachita Rivers, is susceptible of
cultivation.As these lands are subject
to annual overflows, they are in the consequence used as range for hogs and
cattle, the cane brakes affording one pasturage during the winter for cattle,
to say nothing of the mast and grass, which are seemingly inexhaustible.The width of the bottom lands on this side
are from two to three miles, all of which is covered with a magnificent growth
of hardwood timber.Down south, extends
the dividing ridge between the Ouachita and Saline Rivers on the west, and
Bayou Bartholomew on the east.This
divide has on its summit all the isolated expanses of prairie situated in this
county, but the larger part of it is covered with heavy timber.The surface is best described as one long
swell succeeding swell, becoming gradually higher as they near the center, and
receding each way.Nowhere have they an
altitude of more than twenty-five feet above the bottom lands of hte Saline and
Ouachita Rivers, or fifty feet above the bayou bottoms.All the interior streams have their source
in or near these prairies.

The bottom lands of the Bayou Bartholomew are
entirely free from overflow, and while of an alluvial nature, are distinct and
separate from the Mississippi bottoms, and of a different character from the
soil of the remainder of the county.All in all, this is a remarkable scope of country.It is variously conjectured that the bayou
itself is an old channel of the Arkansas River, or the trace of the once mighty
current of the Mississippi.The stream
is certainly very crooked in its meanderings, and has, skirting along either
side, in the larger bends, extensive lakes that show evidence of having at one
time been the channel of the stream.These lakes act as reservoirs during high water in the bayou, the water
running back into them.This in a great
measure accounts for the fact that the adjacent bottoms do not overflow.

Keener Springs, about twelve miles east of Hamburg,
are notable as the Methodist campground.At this place has been erected a large pavilion and here are held annual
camp meeting services.The county is
well watered by the Ouachita and Saline Rivers on the west, Bayou Bartholomew
in the eastern part of the county, and Shmanahant, which rises in the north
central part of the county and flows southwest in its general direction.Overflow Creek and numerous other small
streams traverse the county.All the
inland streams take their rise in or near the prairies.The county's general surface outside of the
bottom lands, is dotted with mounds, small and irregular in size.In Bartholomew bottom there are several of
large formation.

The "like with unlike conditions" of the
county is brought out notably in its climate; the perfection of the peach,
plum, apricot, nectarine, grape, cotton, sugar-cane and sweet potato being
second, along with that of the pear, strawberry, raspberry, corn, oats,
sorghum, rye and Irish potato.

It is discovered in its temperature, which in winter
has never been known to fall to zero, and which in summer is modified during
the day and night time by gulf breezes.

It is observed in its flora, the magnolia, holly,
beech, arbor vitae, pine, cypress, gum, sycamore, basswood, oak, pecan, walnut,
hickory, ash and elm, all flourishing here in perfection, and the spring and
summer blossoms of the south covering the earth with "beds of oriental
flowers."

It is seen in its successful adaptation to the
raising of live stock; in its maximum production of cotton and corn, and in its
remarkable complement of merchantable soft and hardwood timber, the like of
which can not be found elsewhere in the State.

It is established in an investigation of its
domestic water supply; in an exemption from the ills of malaria, if a resident
in the bottom is avoided, and in the health of the women and children seen
here, who wear the colors of the rose and lily in their cheeks equally as they
would throughout the mountains of the State.

And no less, while
questioning nothing of the original aims of the companies to make their systems
connecting links between remote centers, once here it is also to be seen that
the great excellence growing out of its "like the unlike conditions"
is a potent reason why three grand trunk roads should have been projected
through the